How do you shake off a loss? Kings players share their tips

The Kings certainly haven’t become very accustomed to losing of late, especially at home. However, Thursday night brought a 5-2 defeat at the hands of the Dallas Stars.

Knowing that players and coaches often talk about turning the page quickly – even more so during a compacted 48-game season – we wanted to find out exactly what the Kings players do to shake off a loss and put it behind them. So, here’s what a few of them had to say when we took a lap around the locker room following practice this morning…

– Drew Doughty: “It’s tough to kind of get out of your mind to be honest, but right now I have my dog in town. So me and Lewey just went home, sat on the couch and watched some TV to unwind. Then I took my dog on a walk. And then just went to bed, watched some Duck Dynasty – which makes me laugh.”

– Dustin Brown: “It’s hard to sleep after a game. So the important thing is coming back in the next day and working, trying to get better. Whether you win or lose, it’s about the process. In this situation, a 48-game schedule, it’s trying to improve yourself every day. It’s the responsibility of the individual to come in and get ready.”

– Brown on how much time he spends replaying the game in his mind: “I think about the game all night. I think most players do, depending on how it goes. I think if things go well for you, it’s easier to maybe relax and think about other things. But when you lose or maybe you didn’t play as well as you would have liked to, you definitely think about it.”

– Anze Kopitar: “You know you go home and try to unwind really, and try to put positive thoughts into your mind again because everybody is pretty negative after the game. Especially a game like last night. But, you go home, you watch some TV, you watch some scores around the league, whatever. And just pretty much go to sleep and get up in the morning and it’s a new day. You can’t look back, you gotta look ahead. Come here and we watch video, and you try to learn from your mistakes, and away you go.”

– Kopitar on if he replays the game in his mind like Brown: “If I was to say I block it out completely, I’d be lying. There’s definitely some stuff that you have in your mind, and you’re playing it out in different scenarios, or what are you going to do next or whatever. But if you do that too much, you get too down on yourself. So it’s kind of a fine line how much you look back and how much you look ahead.”

– Jake Muzzin: “You think about the game for a little bit. Like in the dressing room, you kind of go over plays and what you could’ve done better, what you shouldn’t have done, or what you could have done and stuff like that. But then slowly as the night goes on, you start to say ‘OK’ – slowly, ‘OK, OK, OK, tomorrow’s going to be a new day. Come in tomorrow ready to work.’ And we had a great practice today, guys were battling and working hard. It’s good for the team to have a practice like that every once in a while. Now, we just focus on tomorrow night’s game.”

That was what he said, but his twitter timeline suggests he uses social media to unwind. Nobody sends out post-game tweets faster than Penner. In fact, sometimes it seems like he’s tweeting from the shower in the locker room.

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